


tomorrow we're too far away

by Ississ



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Hannibal has all the money of the world, Hannibal is his usual age, Hannibal still eats people, M/M, Will gets a puppy jesus how cute do you want it?, Will is 16 in this, homeless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ississ/pseuds/Ississ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal knew that when he offered the boy his hand he did something he shouldn’t have done. He knew that when the boy actually took his hand he was bound to the poor thing. Hannibal knew. And Hannibal didn’t mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tomorrow we're too far away

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh this would be my first fic for the Hannibal fandom!  
> Jesus how do you guys write Hannibal and Will with their complex minds? Tell me your secrets! 
> 
> For Jamie ♥
> 
> ((Non beta'ed))

Hannibal knew that when he offered the boy his hand he did something he shouldn’t have done. He knew that when the boy actually took his hand he was bound to the poor thing. Hannibal knew. And Hannibal didn’t mind. 

Will had such lovely eyes, eyes that stared at him every morning when he walked towards his office. He’d seen the boy countless times and yet all he could remember were his eyes. Blue and light and filled with the shimmer of sadness even if the boy tried to hide it so well.  
He was good at hiding, he was good at blending in. Will could sit on that bench holding that book of his and act as if he was just a normal 16 year old boy who just came out of school and no one would notice the dirt on his clothes, under his fingernails, no one would notices the slight limp when he walked from sleeping on the concrete every night. 

No one would notice.  
Or so Will thought. 

Hannibal noticed, Hannibal noticed a lot. He noticed the bruise on Will’s arm where someone had held him too tight, too strong for the poor boy. Perhaps it was about drugs, even if Hannibal was sure Will never would touch drugs. Not even alcohol. Will had problems, like everyone out on the street, but Will was different, will was a survivor. Will didn’t need drugs, his mind was the place he could escape too. And it frightened him too. His mind haunted him, his mind was his escape. 

He was watching him again, like he did every morning. His glasses were missing and so was his book. Now he was just a boy sitting on a bench all day. No one would believe his story now. Hannibal could see others watching the boy, looking at him as if he’d could jump up every second now and start begging for money. Will would never do that.  
Instead of walking past the boy, like he did every morning, Hannibal stopped right in front of him. Holding out his hand to the boy, waiting for him to take it. “My name is dr. Lecter.” He said as Will took his hand and he pulled him up. 

“Mine is Will.” No last name, interesting. “I know.” 

 

He took Will to his house, gave him food and clean clothes gave him a place to sleep and a home to return too. But Hannibal also gave him freedom. Will was free to leave, to go back to where he came from. Or so the boy thought. Or so Hannibal wanted the boy to think.  
Will had been with him for a week or two. Still unstable. Still flinching away whenever Hannibal met his gaze. Still frightened whenever Hannibal ‘accidentally’ touched him. Will was his pet and Hannibal was going to teach him some tricks. 

“You look well.” Hannibal said when Will came down the stairs at a Saturday morning, awoken by the smell of breakfast. “I assume you slept well?”  
The boy nodded and Hannibal smiled at him. “No bad dreams then, that’s good.” He knew about Will’s nightmares even if the boy never told him about them. Will told him little. But he thanked Hannibal. Thanked him every day. Not in words, one time his car wouldn’t start in the morning and when he came home of a long and tiring day at work Will had fixed it. A problem with the motor he’d said. It was a thank you. 

Hannibal saw them as what they were, thanks given to him by a lonely boy who wasn’t lonely anymore. He wasn’t either. One evening, when Will had almost fallen asleep on the sofa next to him, smelling of lavender and dressed in an old pajama which used to belong to himself and were slightly too big for the boy, Hannibal had played with the boy’s dark curls for a while, letting his finger trace lower and lower until he could feel his pulse in his neck. Enjoying the steady rhythm. Slowly he’d fallen asleep as well only to wake up later with the boy’s head on his shoulder and Will’s hand on his own, covering up his neck and still feeling the pulse against his fingertips. 

Will wanted him to know he was alive. And Hannibal knew. 

The boy looked at him, giving him the same blank stare as he’d always done. “No bad dreams indeed.” He whispered. Hannibal loved to hear his voice, dreamt of it sometimes. Will barely spoke, and if he did it was hushed, soft. He wanted to draw that voice out, wanted to hear Will scream.  
He offered him breakfast, knowing that the boy would only drink coffee. He didn’t seem used to as much food as Hannibal was giving him. Of course the boy had no way to be used to the food Hannibal was giving him but what Will didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.  
“I’m glad.” He said as he took a sip of his own coffee. And he truly was, he was glad that Will’s terrors had left him alone. Even if it was for a night. “You were awake last night.” The boy whispered, adding sugar to the darkness in his cup. “I heard you walking around. Do you have bad dreams?” 

Of course he had, not much, but he had. “Everyone has them. It’s natural.” He dreamt of Will, of Will seeing what he was, who his was. Of Will leaving him, of Will hating him. Of being alone again.  
Will looked up, seeing him and Hannibal could see a hint of emotion, only a hint, in those eyes before it disappeared again. “You were awake for quite some time.” 

“Yes I was, did I disturb you?” It would have been rude of him if he had. “No, I guess…” Will picked in a sausage he had decided to eat this morning. What a surprise. “I guess it helped me sleep.”  
Hannibal raised an eyebrow.  
“I haven’t been alone for… years. It’s… silent.” The boy whispered and he knew he was opening up. Two weeks and the boy said one sentence of his past. Meeting Will’s gaze he knew that this was the only thing he was getting out of the scared thing. 

The day passed, Will stayed on his room. Reading, like he mostly did. Only coming down when Hannibal called him or when he came to ask a question. Hannibal treated him as a normal teenager. As normal as he could treat him.  
“Would you like a pet?” Hannibal asked that night during dinner. He’d seen Will petting stray dogs when he was a stray himself. “A dog perhaps?” 

All he got was a raised eyebrow and a flash in those eyes. “I would like a dog yes.”  
Hannibal smiled, “I’ll find you one tomorrow then.” 

 

That night when his fingers closed around the neck of a woman and he could feel the life slipping out of her, he heard the bark of a dog, a tiny puppy. Small and fragile like Will himself.  
As he walked out, woman left behind, gutted and missing a couple of organs, Hannibal was holding a tiny golden retriever on his arm. It would be the perfect gift. 

When Will wakes up that following day and finds a little dog sleeping on his bed Hannibal’s leaning in the doorway watching the reaction of the boy. He isn’t disappointed. Will smiles. Will pets the animal. And the smile that Hannibal sees is almost worth the dirty dog paws that he knows will be left on the bed. Almost. 

“You won’t be lonely now, will you?” Hannibal asks when Will’s washing the pup later that day. Smiling brightly as the animal playfully nibbles at his fingers. “I wasn’t really lonely.” Will admits softly. Voice still timid. “It was just too silent for me to sleep.”  
And Hannibal knows what he means. He knows the silence that lingers in the dark. Knows what it’s like to run away from it only to be caught by it. “Now the nightmares won’t find me.” He whispers when he pets the pup behind its ears. 

At night, the nightmares find him anyway. Make him scream and pull at his own hair. The pup howls and Hannibal’s awake. He never knew what happened to Will. He could guess. But he’d never know until Will told him himself. The boy never did before, but now he’s crying in the middle of the night. Still close to screaming and almost throwing himself in Hannibal’s as soon as he steps into the bedroom of the boy.  
Will doesn’t speak. He just cries and presses himself to Hannibal, as if he’s worried he’ll leave. The pup licks the tears from Will’s cheeks, growling at Hannibal softly while he does so. 

Running his hands through Will’s hair Hannibal slowly speaks to him. “What is it you’re so afraid of?” And the words that leave Will’s mouth are his own fears. Are his own worries, his own dark shadows.  
Afraid of being alone. 

But he isn’t, Will never would be. And as Hannibal holds the boy close and presses soft kisses onto his hair he remembers that he also won’t be alone. It’s a comforting thought.  
“Stay?” The boy asks in the dark. And how could he refuse. 

Hannibal knew that when he offered the boy his hand he did something he shouldn’t have done. He knew that when the boy actually took his hand he was bound to the poor thing. Hannibal knew. And Hannibal didn’t mind.


End file.
